By Sam Reynolds
The colourful wings of the blue morpho butterfly inspire new anti-counterfeit technology
Taking inspiration from nature, a Surrey-based company led by two SFU researchers has developed a technology that has the potential to revolutionize security for documents and banknotes.
NanoTech Security’s product, called Nano-Optic Technology for Enhanced Security, or NOtES, can stamp a billion holes only atoms in width — no longer than a virus — onto an object, to reflect light with the brightness of an LED.
This would create a unique pattern for a document such as ID or a banknote that would be practically impossible to counterfeit.
“To build such small structures on large scales you need very specialized and expensive equipment which deters the counterfeiters,” explained Clint Landrock, an SFU PhD candidate who doubles as the chief technology officer of NanoTech Security. “We developed special algorithms and designs which make NOtES nearly impossible to replicate, and so far we have not been able to reverse.”
While confidentiality agreements prohibit Landrock from naming firms that are interested in NanoTech Security’s product, he did explain that a number of companies that have an interest in brand protection, such as manufacturers of jewelry or aircraft parts, are taking a look at this technology.
According to research done by the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition, counterfeiting is more than a $600-billion industry.
The scientific principal behind NOtES is known as plasmonics, and takes place when light collects in the billion holes imprinted on a NOtES stamp. No dyes or pigments are used to create a pattern; the company explained that light “creates higher than expected optical outputs by creating an electromagnetic field, called surface plasmonic resonance.”
Simply put: a billion clear atom-sized holes create an optical illusion of a coloured pattern or design.
A phenomenon similar to plasmonics is found in the wings of the blue morpho butterfly, native to Mexico and Central America. The butterfly’s blue colour comes not from pigment in its skin, but from hundreds of millions of atom sized holes in its wings that reflect light in a particular way.
Though the exact manufacturing process is a protected trade secret, prototypes of a NOtES stamp were fabricated by using an electron microscope and an ion beam to etch the pattern on the material one atom at a time. After a master stamp was created, copies were made by growing the metal directly on top of the original.
NOtES is not the first attempt (though it is the first using nanotechnology) to mimic the effect found in the butterfly’s wings. Despite its microscopic size NOtES is far simpler than its competitors: other attempts have involved using arrays of small LEDs or complicated layers of material to bend light.
In an interview with the Financial Post, Landrock explained that in addition to being a revolutionary authentication technology NOtES will mark the first time that nanotechnology is used in a large-scale commercial project.
“Once our technology is commercialized, it will really mark one of the first true nanotechnologies to hit an industrial scale,” Landrock said.
